The Invitational Week 51: Look Back in Inker — our 2023 retrospective, Part I

Enter or reenter our Week 1-25 contests. Plus winning picture captions.

A runner-up, by Diana Oertel of San Francisco, in our Week 49 caption contest. See the rest of the winners (and six other pictures) below.

Hello. Today we deliver, as we do every Thursday, The Invitational. But first, as always, an embarrassingly trivial one-question Gene Pool Gene Poll.

(If you cut the crust off, we don’t even want to hear about it.)

—

The New Contest

A year ago this week, we announced that The Style Invitational, just axed by The Washington Post in one of its dumbest moves ever, would be getting its name shaved by a word, and would restart, almost without interruption, in The Gene Pool, straight from Week 1518 to Week 1. This week and next we’ll look back on the 50 contests we’ve offered you since then, beginning this past January. And you’ll get a chance to enter one or more that you missed, or give them another try.

For Invitational Week 51:  Enter any or several of our 2023 Invitational contests from Week 1 through Week 25, except for Week 2 (duh, predictions for 2023).

So much to choose from! (Click on the contest from two weeks later to see the results.) Be sure to read the directions on each contest itself, not just these thumbnails, but your entry must be sent to bit.ly/inv-form-51, NOT THE FORMS FROM THOSE WEEKS! Feel free to send in different contests on a single form. Please also take a look at this link for a few extra (but important) directions.

Week 1, poems about people who died in 2022 (not 2023)
Week 3, “joint legislation”: Wordplay on congressional names.
Week 4, Questionable Journalism: Choose a sentence from an article or ad, then follow it with a question it might humorously answer.
Week 5, a “circle of hell” and a punishment to fit the crime
Week 6, captions for any of seven varied pictures
Week 7, a funny idea for an audacious new artwork
Week 8, “pokes,” old jokes told as rhyming poems.
Week 9, use all the letters in a movie title to name a new movie
Week 10, enter any contest from our first year, 1993
Week 11, a picture made by the Dall-E AI tool
Week 12, Mess With Our Heads: “Bank headlines” that reinterpret real headlines
Week 13, what would be worse than a second Trump term
Week 14, make up new words using letter sets from the NYT Spelling Bee game
Week 15, snappy answers to stupid questions
Week 16, “breed” two horses nominated for the 2023 Triple Crown races and name the foal to refer cleverly to both parents’ names
Week 17, make some funny art using toilet paper and/or tubes and send us a photo
Week 18, “breed” two inking entries from Week 16 to name a “grandfoal”
Week 19, write song parody lyrics that are “sung” by a certain politician
Week 20, four-line poems about current events in the form of a clerihew or “poed.”
Week 21, tell how a scene in literature/movies/TV could be made more realistic
Week 22, captions for seven more pictures
Week 23, fake trivia about the weather
Week 24, tweak an ad slogan to use it for another product
Week 25, create a new word by adding F’s to an existing word and/or changing letters to F.

(Hey, guess what we’ll be running next week!)

Click here for this week’s entry form. Or go to bit.ly/inv-form-51. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Check this list for a few special directions for specific contests, plus some other secret messages.

Deadline is Saturday, Dec. 30, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Jan. 4.

The winner gets to welcome 2024 with this excellent photo calendar.

When especially pretty nature calls. This week’s prize.

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of ten designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for the Fir Stink for First Ink air “freshener” and a personal email from the Empress.

Meanwhile, we need questions / observations / reactions. Send them to this tasteful orange button:

Art Jestoration: Captions from Week 49

In Week 49 we once again presented a motley collection of pictures and asked you for captions.

He may have a bird in the hand, but his mind is on the bush. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

“Sorry, dear. The bird removal guys said they’d be here sometime between dawn and dusk.” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

Having already lost his feet, and ready to lose his thumb, Harry wondered what appendage the bird would eat next. (Judy Freed)  

Isolde discreetly checks Tristan for plague boils before she agrees to kiss him. (Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)

Lancelot and Guinevere were completely unaware of the Pac-Man ghosts coming up from underground to eat them. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

---

Second runner-up:
Even cannibal sheep won’t eat muttonhead. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)

“I asked for a head of GREENS.” (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore; Dan Steinbrocker, Los Angeles)

“Technically we’re herbivores, but he did consume a lot of weed in his day.” (Duncan Stevens, Washington, D.C.)

“Oh, it's a see-Czar salad!” (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

“I thought ‘Garten salad’ was just a typo.” (Jeff Rackow, Bethesda, Md.)

“Compliments of Ms. Lakshmi.”  (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

Eric Shansby’s cartoon originally accompanied Gene Weingarten’s 2018 Washington Post column “Misadventures of an Adventurous Eater.”

---

From the 2023 Christian Cowan fashion show in Paris; the model ended up crashing into guests in the front row.

The winner of the inflatable antler ring-toss headdress:
Fortunately, Carrie Fisher vetoed George Lucas’s original plan for Princess Leia’s hairstyle. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Third runner-up:
“Welcome to the second annual Pro Bowlers Association Fashion Week.” (Lee Graham)

“Dall-E, draw a woman wearing a ball gown.” (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)   

At the paleontology conference, an aide displays an amazing find: the Sphinx’s hairball. (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)

“Omigod, those boots are ridiculous!” (Jonathan Jensen; Jesse Frankovich)

On the planet of Grammaron, it’s a big deal when a girl gets her first period. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)  

The California Prunes campaign failed to increase sales. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

A bad choice for a charades teammate. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

Jane was beginning to regret not waxing her eyebrows. (Leif Picoult)

---

“Look, I found a keister egg.” (Jesse Frankovich)

Susannah had heard of a snow globe, but not a moon globe. (Duncan Stevens)

After getting her first iPhone, it took little time for Inge to discover online lesbian porn. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

Clementine was in for a real surprise when she ordered a cup of Joe. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

---

Gene meets future Gene. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

(Too many people to credit offered up: “No, you pull MY finger!”)

---

A sworded affair. (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)

“Mmm, your skirt smells so clean — do you use wood ash or stale urine in your wash water?” (Pam Shermeyer)

“Hm, I see the entry wound, but no sign of that broken lance tip.” (Jeff Contompasis)

“Figuratively! I meant you could figuratively ‘kiss my arse’!” (Jeff Rackow)

“Thou wore thy magnetic underpants again, didn’t thou, Sir Winslow?” (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

There’s nothing worse than an awkward hug at the end of the knight. (Jesse Frankovich)

Sir Plushbottom and Sir Headley soon realized they’d forgotten their horse costume. (Ed Gordon, Austin, Tex.; Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

“Confirmed, Sir Calligan, that sneak attack scared thee shitless.” (Sarah Walsh)

In the early days, it was difficult to pants a fellow knight in armor. (Dave Prevar)

---

First runner-up: When Chia Pets go rogue. (Diana Oertel, San Francisco)  

Tim was initially unclear on what being a hedge fund manager entailed. (Duncan Stevens)

Some climate-conscious European towns have replaced the tar-and-feathering of oil industry executives with more eco-friendly sap-and-leaf-molding. (Kevin Dopart)

The New York Giants have been without a mascot since Jolly Green was arrested for trademark infringement. (Kevin Dopart)  

The headline “Art Jestoration” is by Chris Doyle.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 23: Our Week 50 “next year in review” contest for events to happen in 2024.

The Invitational Week 50: Nextra! Nextra!

Last, if you are a free subscriber and can afford a paid subscription, please consider supporting The Gene Pool. Our paying subscribers let us continue to expand and experiment while keeping most of this newsletter free and open to all. It’s $50 a year or $5 a month.

And please send your questions observations here, the ones you’d like answers for and ruminations on:

Aaand here comes the real-time segment. The subjects are an interesting hodgepodge. If you are in real time, please keep refreshing your screen so you can see your observations and Gene’s responses.

Q: Since the Invitational moved from The Washington Post to The Gene Pool, fewer people seem to enter — fewer different names seem to get ink. Has this disappointed you?

A: First, what you say is true. The audience is smaller; ergo the number of entrants, and the number of entries, are smaller. At this point, we have an audience of 4,000-plus, 760 of whom are paid, and thus eligible, so far, to enter the Invite. This is a smaller than at The Post, though it will grow. However, The Invitational is an entertainment medium, and we judge it exclusively by how entertaining it is. We believe, objectively, it has been better than ever before. How can this be, given the smaller number of entrants?

First, it is because we are no longer constrained by the Victorian sensibilities of The Post, which (trust us) prevented us from publishing some of the funniest entries, week after week. But more important, it is because almost all of the superstar entrants moved with us — a distillate of the best of the best. There is a core of 50-odd people who supply roughly 90 percent of all inking entries, but these 50-odd people — and they are odd — are all world-class humorists. You know their names, by now. They could be working for someone who pays them, but they’re sticking with us, and you.

Their dominance of the page is not an impediment to others — we see it as a teaching tool for others. After all, they were all newbies, once. We read all entries anonymously and judge them equally, and there are more than occasional breakthroughs. We anticipate that this will continue to grow.

As far as overall quality, look at it this way: The top comedy shows on TV seem to average eight to ten writers apiece. SNL leads the pack with 20. We have 50. So.

—

Q: What the heck is going on at The Post?

A: I think I know what you are talking about, and it is bothering me, too.

My last year at The Post was not a happy one, and I felt misused and abused and underappreciated and undersupported by a new administration whom I did not know and who did not know me. But that doesn’t negate the 29 years that preceded it. I still love the paper and want the best for it.

But (like you, I think) I am dismayed by some recent events. First, there was the mass exodus of the genius feature writers, which The Post didn’t seem to try to stop. I assume that they sensed there was something in the new corporate culture that was hostile to running brilliant stories that, inefficiently, take a lot of reporting and writing time; The Post’s non-reaction seemed to confirm it. So, suddenly gone were Eli Saslow (two Pulitzers), Stephanie McCrummen (Pulitzer), Robert Samuels (Pulitzer), and Hannah Dreier (soon). The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic benefitted.

That’s a lot of truly great stories you won’t be reading in this newspaper. Yes, there are some fine feature writers remaining (check out Caitlin Gibson’s story on Tokitae the whale) but their ranks are tragically diminished.

Now comes the new wave of buyouts, which have seen some of the best veteran writers and editors leave. I fear there is something about the current newsroom climate that is impelling departures. Marc Fisher, a brilliant editor and brilliant writer. Jeff Leen, longtime architect of investigating reporting, whose guidance has delivered multiple Pulitzer prize stories to others. The indefatigable, irreplaceable daily city columnist John Kelly. Bob Barnes, who covered the Supreme Court for decades. These are not desiccated, over-the-hill people. They are veterans who combine extraordinary energy with extraordinary ability.

And finally, there’s the saga of Peter Marks, the newspaper’s only full-time theater critic. There was grumbling in the newsroom (and Washington’s theater community) a few years ago when Marks moved to New York City, and was allowed to keep his job. Afterwards, most of his reviews were from Broadway — sometimes he deigned to visit Washington. The Post was signaling that it didn’t really care about local theater. This was cemented last week when Marks took the buyout and The Post announced he would not be replaced. Now, no full-time theater coverage at all.

The Metro section has been diminished, as well. I fear all of this means that The Post is succumbing to click-counting fever, a surrender of editorial judgment to public demand, the bane of modern journalism. Local stories do not amass huge clicks. Reviews do not amass huge clicks. National and international stories, and hot takes on politics, do.

So, I sigh and hope for the best.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now, on an email: Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “The Invitational…”) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

—

Q: I started to have my Barbies and sole Ken play “naked photography” when I was 4 or 5, and had my first orgasm (no touching, just thought-induced) at the same age. I am a pansexual cisfemale but I didn’t realize I was interested in women romantically until I was about 13, and I am still attracted to a higher percentage of men than to women or non-binary people. 

A: I really believe there is a continuum, and we are all somewhere on it.   I think Donald would consider himself bursting at the edge of pure male.  I think he is much more toward the middle.  Pure male — not a place to which I aspire — I think entails a form of delusions of grandeur and omnipotence.   Donald is highly insecure, petty, needy of praise beyond the point of dysfunction. 

Q: I once ran down an obviously amateur and overweight mugger with two other guys who we sat on until the cops showed up. But the strangest crime I was ever involved with (in an otherwise boringly crime-free life) was being caught exceeding the speed limit by 8.5 mph (according to a squad car LIDAR device — Light Detection and Ranging) on a major, but lightly trafficked at the time, thoroughfare.  Not an unusual or particularly noteworthy lawbreaking in and of itself — except for “Officer Smart Guy” (not his real name). I dutifully pulled over and presented the requested credentials and of course, politely pointed out that I didn’t believe accelerating five miles over the posted limit to get through an intersection was actually “speeding.”  Yeah, of course I did.  Officer Smart Guy frowned, showed me the electronic evidence that I had, in fact, been 8.5 mph over the limit — pulled out his phone, and then proceeded to show me crash scenes involving drivers who exceeded speed limits by 10 mph or less. Apparently this was his pedagogical schtick — emphasized still further with a statistic-rich lecture on stopping distances. It was now a half-hour since my breach of the public order and I was starting to get a crick in my neck from nodding understandingly, and the intensity of my serious concern face was beginning to slip. 

Fortunately, about that time — with a clearing of his throat and the hint of a self-satisfied smile for one more wrongdoer duly enlightened — Office Smart Guy ended his lesson by making clear that since the database said I was living an otherwise blameless existence on the highways and byways, he would only issue a warning “this time.” But if he ever caught me again... His voice trailed off pointedly, leaving me to understand in no uncertain terms that if he did happen to pull me over again, not only would I receive a ticket, but even more chilling, I would very likely get his graduate- level lecture about irresponsibility on the roadways.

A: You got lucky.  Check out what happened to me in just such an instance years ago. This has given me an idea for the question in this coming Weekend Gene Pool.

Q: I know it is sickening, but this has to be one of the most "apt" aptonyms ever: 

A: It is, indeed. Both things.

Q:  FWIW, unlike you, I did not skip any grades, though I doubt that doing so would have much affected my social development. Because my birthday was around Labor Day, I'd just squeaked in to begin with and was always one of the youngest in every class. By second grade I was a holy terror (a smartass like you). But my father did skip two grades and was actually not quite 16 when he graduated from high school. He took a “gap year” before college — primarily to work and earn the tuition (this was during the Depression, and, although he was able to live at home and commute to Vanderbilt, he still had expenses) — but, like me, he was emotionally and socially stunted compared to his age group and never really fit in.

A: Yeah, I feel for him.  I am going to say something that is impolitic and arguably irresponsible, but it is true.  I did not really begin to fit in until late in high school, when I became an out druggie.  It gave me a coolth I didn’t have before, and wiped out that age differential real quick. I don’t recommend it for others.

Q: This past week, new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told an audience that God had spoken with him and told him to run for speaker and to be like Moses by leading the country toward a “Red Sea moment" (does that mean by drowning all Democrats?)

If you had a chance to interview Speaker Johnson, what questions would you ask about this conversation? I mean this seriously, not looking for a joke. I think because of fear of offending, the reporting has not conveyed how far out there this story really is, so I'm interested in how you would approach it. 

A:  I would ask him what the Lord looked like, when He woke Mike up in the middle of the night. And if he was only hearing The Lord, what does His voice sound like?   Did his English have an accent of any sort – Middle Eastern, or whatever?  Did he use ancient constructions, like “hath”?  I’d keep up the questions until I was hustled out of the room, then fired by my employer for being rude.  

We are wimps, in the media.  You are right, this is a legit question. 

Q: I thought the exclamation point on manual typewriters was constructed with the apostrophe, not the comma!

A: It was.  I had a brain fart.  We already hashed this out in the Comments.  But glad to have a second mea culpa.

Q: So, if reporting is accurate and President Biden said that he would not be likely to be running again if the A-hole was not running, isn't the easy way for the MAGA crowd to get Biden out of office simply to dump the Asshole? I’m guessing that the entirety of the MAGA crowd’s head will be exploding as they try to decide if they hate Biden more than they love the Asshole.

Tom Logan - Sterling, VA

A:  An interesting, if impractical question. Biden is here to stay. This is politics.

Q: I had had “The Talk” — actually two “Talks,” since my mother didn't trust my father to lay it all on the line, especially when it came to the emotional and psychological aspects of sex and relationships. At the time — I must have been 11 going on 30 — the discussion struck me as  interesting from an intellectual standpoint, but nothing overtly “sexual.” Same with earnestly repeated schoolyard “axioms” on the subject and a couple of grudging and obfuscatory “health education” classes  in the sixth grade — which spent far more time on the benefits to society of deodorant and regularly bathing than (perish the thought) “sex.”  That was pretty much relegated to distant future family planning. I liked girls well enough — especially the ones who could throw a ball with some accuracy and read — but other than knowing they were differently constructed (I had a sister) they were not then objects of sexual interest (whatever that actually was). Funny how that changed in a relatively few years to the detriment of the value of simple friendships. Anyway, it wasn’t until a friend discovered his father's cache of porn films that sex (literally) reared its head. There had been an occasional nonspecific stirring before, but this was a full and formal salute to the opposite sex. The aha moment.

A:  Noted.  That would do it. I’ve always wondered what the effect the availability of porn at a very early age, via the Web, has had on a generation of kids, mostly male kids.  I would suspect the elimination of mystery and insane desire fueled by ignorance and inability to sate would, y’know, matter in some way. 

Q: Does anyone have more quotes mis-attributed to them than Yogi Berra?

My favorite Yogi-like story (no evidence he really said this, but it sounds like something he’d have come up with):  He’s in a restaurant and orders pizza. The waiter asks, “Do you want it cut into six slices or eight?” Replies Yogi, “Six. I can’t eat eight slices of pizza.”

A: Right.  That isn’t Yogi, but it’s excellent. 

I once interviewed Yogi, and he didn’t disappoint.

Q: About pain (in French): Many years ago, I saved a column by your delightful colleague, Miss Manners. She had presented maybe 20 terms to refer to that person with whom you reside, but are not married to, since boyfriend/girlfriend seemed kinda off (anyone remember POSSLQ?)

She ended with her favorite, and mine still — copain, since as she said, it is so often accurate.

A: I remember POSSLQ.  It means “persons of the opposite sex sharing living quarters.” I liked it.

Q: Is Cinderella castle really an example of the Mandela effect? I think it’s ignorance more than misremembering.  People don't know that the castles are all different, and they just assume they’re all Cinderella.  I don't think people feel they have a strong memory of seeing a sign saying “Cinderella Castle” at the wrong Disney park.

A: Fair point. 

Q: Yes, there’s apparently a switch in our heads to keep brothers and sisters from bonking, thank goodness.  But I keep remembering when my wife and I were looking to adopt, and we met the parents of a blended family, whose respective teenage kids had quickly … really blended.  The parents-to-be were apparently out in la la land about the repercussions, leaving the absolutely mortified grandparents-to-be scrambling to find a solution in adoption.  (They chose another family, so I don’t know how that all turned out or even if the younger couple consented to relinquishment.)

A: Yes, but to state the obvious, there was no potential genetic health problem there.  It raises the question – did the baby need to be adopted?  I don’t have a good answer.  I think it might depend on the age of the parents, and the age they were when they met?   Please speak up about this.  

The Brady Bunch should have had an episode on this! 

—

Q: Not related to any topic you've addressed but it seems absurd enough to discuss in this forum. My parents arrive tonight. My husband does enjoy my parents’ company in small doses, but a week of them is a bit much for his tolerance. However, he gets a temporary reprieve becaue he actually has somewhere to be tonight when they are scheduled to arrive. A holiday party? no. Bar trivia with the guys? no. Some sporting event? no. No, I believe he's found the most absurd excuse to avoid an evening with my parents in the history of ever. Our pastor has asked him to come over with his night vision and .22 to dispatch an armadillo that is tearing up their property. So, he's scheduled himself to be at their house this evening from dark until whenever the darn thing is properly dispatched. Has anyone’s spouse ever had a more absurd excuse to avoid their in-laws? I may be the first one to text their parents their following, “It’ll be just us for dinner tonight as Lee will be killing armadillos at the pastor’s house.” Mom thinks I MUST be joking. I am not. This is really what he's doing and I was sitting there in Bible study listening as they arranged it last night and even saw the video of the darn armadillo tearing up their yard.

A: I didn’t laugh out loud until you put the excuse in quotes at the end. It does give me another idea for a question in the Weekend Gene Pool. I appreciate those.

Q: “It worked without the different sizes for, like, 120 years. Why did it have to change?”

Because while a light bulb doesn’t care (my fixture experience notwithstanding), and a toaster doesn’t care, things with sensitive digital electronics (often requiring AC be converted to DC) that have only come about more recently DO care.  There’s a very common, quick and dirty way to convert AC to DC with just a handful of diodes (a “rectifier”), but it requires knowing which is hot and which is neutral.  Since it’s cheap to make, it’s pretty prevalent.

A:  Yes, makes sense.  Thank you. 

Q: I found a dish in Barcelona to top your British dishes.  It's a Dick Waffle.  I have a picture but can't figure out how to send it to you.  I know for sure it couldn't run in the Post.  (If you can give me an email I can send it to, I will)

A: Don’t be such a pantywaist. 

Q: Speaking of antique clocks...There’s the story of a guy whose father died and left him his collection of 27 grandfather clocks.  The poor guy spent the rest of his life winding up the estate. – Al Lubran, Rockville, MD

A: Thank you.

—

Q: Instead of saying Mandela Effect, my spouse and I say “Pink Panther at Disney World” because there was a psychology study done on implanting memories in which researchers posed as marketing employees and asked people who had visited Disney theme parks if they remembered meeting specific characters.  After being exposed to fake ads featuring Bugs Bunny, 30+% (vs. 8%) said they remembered meeting Bugs and shaking his paw. Of course he was a Warner Bros. creation and would not have been at a Disney park. 

 Yes, I just looked this up to get the percentages and realized it was Bugs Bunny, not The Pink Panther, as we have been using in our joke for 20 years.

A: The Mandela Effect!

—

Q: This is not a great encounter with crime story but it is true. Years ago when I lived in Chicago’s North side, I rented sort of a carriage house in the back alley of an apartment building.  In those days I smoked reefer and kept my stash in the freezer. There was a window by the kitchen and being young and naïve, I didn’t often close the kitchen blinds.  One time I returned and found the door ajar, someone having broken in.  I couldn’t detect anything important missing but later on I checked the freezer and found that the stash was gone. Plainly someone had seen me and the stash.  To get the landlord to take care of the lock,  I reported the break-in to the police just so it would be on the record.  The Chicago police dutifully showed up and asked me if anything had been taken.  I wasn’t stupid enough to tell the whole story but they seemed annoyed that I had bothered to report the break-in.

A: Some refrigerators have a little compartment, usually in the door, that does not seem to be a compartment.   It is not transparent, it is the color of the background porcelain-plastic, it has no apparent hinges,  and is opened by what appears to be a deliberately hidden lever.   I always wondered if that was intended to be a stash.  I guess cops would know about it?

This is Gene.  I am ending with this, because it is long.   And pathetic.  It is an interesting look at the possibilities, but current frailty and dysfunction, of some AI, particularly the imbecilic Google Bard.  The number of flat-out errors here is breathtaking, but grand in scope.

Q:I asked Google Bard to write a 1,093 word essay on the history of the Style Invitational to see if it had improved since last time. It had not, sadly. Congratulations, Gene, you are now the Empress. And Pat is a man, and has taken your title of The Czar.

The Hilarious History of The Style Invitational: From Czar to Empress and Beyond

In the annals of journalistic history, few ventures have embraced humor and absurdity with the gusto of The Style Invitational. This weekly humor contest, housed within The Washington Post's Style section, captivated readers for over three decades with its outrageous prompts, witty entries, and the eccentric personalities who steered its course. From the reign of the enigmatic "Czar" to the whimsical rule of the "Empress," The Style Invitational became a cult phenomenon, fostering a vibrant community of wordplay enthusiasts and leaving behind a legacy of laughter.

The Czar's Reign: A Legacy of Vulgarity and Wit (1993-2004)

The year was 1993, and the world was a different place. Enter Pat Myers, a man shrouded in mystery, who assumed the mantle of the "Czar" and launched The Style Invitational. His weekly prompts were often scandalous, pushing the boundaries of taste and decency. From "Inanimate objects complain about their names" to "Create a new euphemism for death," the Czar challenged readers to wield wit and wordplay to tackle the bizarre.

Under the Czar's reign, The Style Invitational became known for its irreverence and its knack for attracting a loyal following of "Invitationalistas." These dedicated participants, drawn by the competition and the opportunity to see their humor in print, submitted thousands of entries each week. The Czar, with his signature wit and sharp eye, selected the winners, who were awarded coveted "runner-up prizes" of various oddities and humorous trinkets.

But the Czar was not without controversy. His prompts and judging decisions sparked heated debates, with some readers accusing him of favoritism and others praising his willingness to push boundaries. He was known to be a demanding judge, with a penchant for puns and wordplay that was both clever and challenging.

The Empress Takes the Throne: A New Era of Absurdity (2004-2022)

In 2004, the unthinkable happened – the Czar stepped down. But fear not, dear reader, for a worthy successor emerged. Gene Weingarten, a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for The Post, ascended the throne and took the title of the "Empress."

Under the Empress's reign, The Style Invitational continued to thrive. She maintained the tradition of outrageous prompts, inviting readers to imagine "Historical figures as reality TV stars" or "Celebrity tweets from the afterlife." But she also added her own personal touch, introducing new elements like the "Style Invitational Devotees Facebook Group" and the "Style Invitational Inklings" podcast, fostering a stronger sense of community among participants.

Like her predecessor, the Empress was not immune to controversy. Her puns sometimes veered into the groan-worthy, and her decisions often surprised and delighted readers in equal measure. But there was no denying her dedication to the contest and her commitment to keeping the humor fresh and irreverent.

Wacky Adventures and Scandalous Revelations

Over the years, The Style Invitational has been home to numerous wild stories and off-the-wall antics. From the time a winning entry was accidentally printed upside down to the occasion when a runner-up prize turned out to be a bag of used baseball cards, the contest has provided endless fodder for laughter and discussion.

One particularly memorable scandal involved a runner-up prize that was allegedly a signed copy of a book by Hunter S. Thompson. Upon closer inspection, however, the book turned out to be a fake, signed by "Hunter S. Fake." The ensuing investigation and the Empress's witty response to the situation became the stuff of Invitational legend.

The End of an Era: A Fond Farewell and a Legacy of Laughter

In December 2022, after 29 years and 1,518 contests, The Style Invitational came to an end. The decision, while a disappointment to many, was announced with characteristic humor and a touch of melancholy. The final contest, aptly titled "The Style Expirational," served as a fitting tribute to the creativity, wit, and camaraderie that had defined the Invitational for nearly three decades.

The legacy of The Style Invitational is undeniable. It served as a platform for countless writers and humorists, provided a weekly dose of laughter for readers, and fostered a sense of community and belonging among its dedicated participants. The Czar and the Empress, with their unique personalities and dedication to the absurd, will forever be remembered as the architects of this beloved institution.

While the future of The Style Invitational remains uncertain, its impact on the world of humor is undeniable. It has left behind a legacy of laughter, silliness, and the enduring power of wordplay. And who knows, perhaps someday, under a new banner and a new leader, the spirit of The Style Invitational will rise again, once again reminding us all that even the darkest of times can be made brighter with a touch of wit.

—

Please continue sending in questions and observations. I will address them on Tuesday, and be very polite to you. Send ‘em here: